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Create an Activity

After creating your first project, you'll want to create activities that you can use to track time against. This guide will walk you through creating your first activity in Kimai.

Activities in Kimai

Activities describe the type of work performed during a time-record.

Kimai Activities Documentation

Dashboard

Let's start from the Kimai dashboard:

Kimai dashboard showing the main interface

Now that you have both a customer and project set up, we can create your first activity.

Administration Sidebar

To create an activity, first access the administration area:

Administration section in the sidebar navigation

  1. Click on the "Administration" dropdown in the left sidebar
  2. Select "Activities" from the menu options

Activities Overview

You'll be taken to the activities overview screen:

Activities overview showing an empty activities list

When you're just starting, this list will be empty. Let's create your first activity!

Create

To add a new activity:

Create button in the upper right corner

Click the "+ Create" button in the upper right corner of the screen to open the new activity dialog.

New Activity Dialog

The new activity creation form will appear:

New activity dialog with input fields

Fill in the following details for your activity:

  • Name: Enter a descriptive name for your activity (e.g., "Development", "Design", "Meeting")
  • Color: Choose a color to easily identify this activity (optional)
  • Description: Add details about the activity (optional)
  • Project: Select the project this activity belongs to (optional). If you don't select a project, the activity will be considered a "global" activity and will be available to all projects.
  • Budget and Time Budget: Set time or money budgets if needed (optional)
  • Team: Select the team this activity belongs to (optional)
  • Rate: Define hourly rates for billing (optional)

Note

You can edit these details later by clicking on the activity in the activities list and selecting the edit option.

Warning

However, pay special attention to the Project field. This setting cannot be changed later.

After filling in the required information, click "Save" to create your new activity.

Activity Details

After saving, you'll see the activity details page:

Activity details page showing the new activity

This page shows all the information about your newly created activity.

Activities List

If you return to the Activities section in the Administration menu, you'll now see your new activity listed:

Activities list showing the new activity

Congratulations! You've successfully created your first activity in Kimai. You can now:

  • Create additional activities as needed
  • Start tracking time using your new activity
  • Generate reports filtered by activity
  • Manage activity budgets and rates

You're now ready to begin tracking time in Kimai!